Deus ex Grana
by Quirel
Summary: In the late 25th century, a man with a vision is awarded one of the highest honors of in the field of science. Lest his story go unnoticed, a junior news correspondent sets out to report on the man's plan to ensure the future security of all mankind.


**_April 23, 2489. 1130 Hours, Local Time  
Elwood Settlement, _****_Transit Shuttle I45_**  
**_UNSC Settlement District Bly, Hearth_**

Scotty Kurtz was not a brave man.

As a newly hired reporter, working for the venerable Reuters Company, he wasn't expected to cover a war or interview doctors in the midst of a deadly pandemic. There was no way in Hell he'd visit the gristly crime scene of an ax murderer or a serial sacrificialist until the perpetrator was long gone, or better yet, behind bars. Or best of all, confirmed dead, by his own hands or through some indiscriminate justice met out by the police.

Scotty was under no illusions about his mortality or his intestinal fortitude, so he'd done his best to land the boring jobs. And when the order came down for someone to go interview a biologist turned farmer turned Nobel laureate, he'd jumped at the chance. An interview with an egghead farmer wouldn't get a lot of people to press the "More" button, but it seemed safe.

And then Scotty had read the prereqs for the interview. Read exactly what the guy had won the Nobel Peace Prize for. Which was why he was on the shuttle, wearing a particle filtration mask and a rubber poncho. Everyone else on board was wearing casual jeans and flannel work , some clean from the lab, others dirty from driving combines through the...

Scotty shuddered.

They were all giving him strange looks, glancing at him and wondering what was with the getup. Screw them.

Ever since he'd learned what was going on out here, in the first planet of the Omicron Epsilon system, he'd gone through a drastic diet change. Fresh fruit and vegetables bought back home, on Urbia, surely came from Hearth. They had to go. In their place, he'd sought out only the most unnatural of foods, processed twice and deep fat fried.

It put his mind at ease, but his stomach had a different opinion.

**_April 23, 2489. 1204 Hours, Local Time  
Office Block, Three Rapids Station.  
UNSC Settlement District Bly, Hearth  
_**

Scotty had removed the mask and the hood of the poncho, but not much else. A quick guess led him to the visitor's center of the station, where a disinterested receptionist had told him where to go. With stares following him, he boldly strode down the halls of the office building until he found the office of one Jean Hammond, PhD. There, another secretary rolled her eyes at his getup, asked for his press pass twice, and then informed him that Jean Hammond was not in his office at the moment. He would probably be found in the observation tower, thank you very much. Have a nice day.

The observation tower jutted out of of the office building in a way that failed to please the eye, as if the tower had grown out of the ground overnight, too close to the office block and too far away from the warehouses and greenhouses. From the observation deck, a sad little cube set atop a scrawny cone of a neck, the biologists and farmers could see the for scores of miles, could guide the cropdusters through their gridiron runs, could use the same cropdusters to spot disease and blight and pestilence before it could take hold.

Scotty had been volunteered for this assignment because of his college jobs on Harvest. He knew what went into a farm, what it took for ten people to feed ten million. And he was still amazed at how few people were running things. Most of the workers were lab technicians; Scotty doubted he'd seen more than ten people who exclusively drove combines or remotely piloted UAVs.

And there, by one of the window bays, was the man he was looking for. The big cheese. The head honcho. The man whose bacon everyone here was bringing home.

That last phrase elicited a moan and a grimace from Scotty. That was one turn of phrase that would never, ever, be uttered aloud or set to paper.

Jean Hammond was a denizen of that curious demograph of the UNSC. His name was ill-suited for his features. He did not appear to be descended from western Eurasia or North America, but had an ageless face with no distinctly ethnic features. His skin tone and wiry hair suggested ancestry that trailed back to Latin America, or perhaps the mountains south of the Hindu Kush, but his blue eyes suggested a mixed ancestry. A receding hairline and graying hair were all that betrayed the late age of the Nobel Laureate, but Scotty had a hunch that, were he to take one of Hammond's hands and examine them, they would be lined and worn from many years of working in the field.

Outside, an ungainly pod transport hovered over one of the warehouses, with a massive tank dangling beneath it. When the tank was aligned over a receiving pit in the warehouse, the transport lowered, and banged the tank against the edge of the pit. A tear opened in the side, and brown liquid sprayed across the warehouse roof.

Hammond sighed and thumbed a button on his radio.

"Paulo, I've warned you about sloppy work like that. Finish the job and set the mule down."

Well, in Paulo's defense, that aircraft looked like it had been designed with atmospheric flight as the last thing in mind. Combine that with a thousand-ton tank of-

The radio buzzed, and Hammond's secretary showed up on the caller ID.

"Sir, a reporter is here to see you. He insists he has an appointment."

"Tell the bugger I'm engaged at the moment. This'll take another thirty minutes."

Before embarrassment could set in, Scotty stepped in and cleared his throat.

"Mr. Hammond? I'm already here, but if you would prefer that I wait, I shall."

The biologist leaned against the console and hung his head.

Scotty pressed on. "I've read up on your operation, and I was lead to believe that the... waste was frozen solid before it was shipped here?"

"Yes, we park the containers in the lunar shadow for a couple of days," Hammond said. "By the time they're pushed into slipspace and travel here, they're more or less frozen solid. But thawing occurs during re-entry into our atmosphere, and when planetary traffic control wants to screw with us."

"However," he said, turning around. "I was raised to believe that all meetings should begin with introductions. And I'm quite afraid that I don't know who you are. And I am also afraid that I am quite insulted by your business attire."

Yeah, clearly a stubborn old codger who didn't believe in the value of buttering up reporters.

"Sorry, I'm Scotty Kurtz, and I am a junior reporter for Reuters. I'm sorry for the poncho, but I was unsure if I would have to track you down in the field."

The frown didn't leave Hammond's face. "I'm sure you were. And I apologize if I am somewhat brusque, but I have an business to run here."

"Perhaps it would help if you could fill in the details? I could interview your staff later, but it's best to hear how this all works from the man on top."

That was clearly an unwelcome request to Mr. Hammond, but he sat down in a nearby chair and asked how much of this stuff would be on the record.

"As much as you want."

Hammond nodded approvingly. "Good. I want all of it on record. Word for word. And I want nothing left out."

"Um, sir?"

"I said all of it. People need to know exactly what I'm doing, and why. If you cut up this interview to make it, God forbid, _entertaining,_ the whole purpose is negated. What I want is this conversation to appear in full on the evening news, or on the website, wherever the Hell you stick it."

"I can't really guarantee that, sir."

"Then why the Hell are you here, taking the interview for?"

* * *

The conference room in which the interview took place was too drab for Scotty's taste, but Hammond's utilitarian work clothes somehow made him look better on the camera. He looked like he actually worked for a living, which wouldn't have come across if he wore a lab coat or a business suit.

"Good evening. This is Scott Kurtz, reporting from the Bly Settlement District on Nebus Prime. Tonight, I am sitting down with Jean Hammond, PhD and the CEO of LifeCycle Agrarian..."

Mr. Hammond looked like he couldn't be any more disinterested in the introduction, which rubbed Scotty the wrong way. Hammond might not like sitting down with reporters, but couldn't he at least try to make this work? Scotty was Hammond's best chance to get his cause known to audiences across the UNSC.

"Sir, could you please detail how your operation works?"

Hammond looked squarely into the camera. "There are seven hundred billion humans spread out among nearly eight hundred planets. Of eight hundred colonized planets, only forty or so are fertile enough to grow the massive quantities of food for the citizens of the UNSC, which are called Ag-worlds. However, the United Nations Geological Survey has cataloged over five thousand planets, with less than one percent capable of massive-scale agriculture. Hydroponics efforts on less suitable planets have yet to produce enough food to support the population that houses it."

Scotty mentally moaned. The codger was starting off with the big picture, the surest way to get people to change the channel or go surfing for webcomics.

"_The system is unstable."_

"When the heartland of North America and Asia went barren a hundred years ago, nobody questioned why that had happened. Almost universal opinion held that Earth's most fertile land dried up because of poor crop rotation and improper use of fertilizer. Nutrients were being taken out of the soil, out of the system, and not being replaced."

Hammond leaned closer to the camera to drive his point home.

"_Nothing has changed."_

"Every day, over a million tons of produce leave each ag-world we have. That's a million tons of water, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrocarbons leaving those worlds, and not being replaced. Fertilizer produced on other planets is rarely used, because it costs more than fertilizer manufactured on the home planet. I set up LifeCycle solely to deal with this issue."

"Right now, in the Chicago Industrial Zone and the Demidov Industrial District, we have plants set up that take in human waste. In place of current treatments, we pasteurize the waste and then add proprietary bacteria strains to break down the waste and produce methane for fuel. What's left is a nutrient-rich slurry that has been produced for pennies, and requires no special preparations or environment for long-term storage."

"At the moment, we take the product and ship it directly into space via space elevator. We will install freeze-drying equipment later in the fiscal year, but at the moment we are shipping three tons of water for every ten tons of fertilizer."

"Don't you need the water?"

"We need the fecal matter more than we need the water. We have sources of water closer to home, and cheaper to ship."

"Could you explain the pasteurization process?"

Hammond relaxed a bit as he dove into the technical details. Scotty was surprised to find himself disappointed. Even if the egghead had started off wrong, there was a sense of urgency in the man's demeanor that sent shivers down his spine.

"The intent is to kill off harmful bacteria like samonela or _E. Coli_, and break down the fecal matter into a paste we can separate most of the water from. After that, we culture bacteria inside ten-thousand liter tanks, to break down the fecal mater even further and to produce methane, which we burn in the pasteurization process."

That struck a chord with Scotty. Somehow, using waste byproducts from the processed waste to treat the incoming waste seemed... elegant.

"That sounds pretty efficient."

"It is. And it's the main reason that the Siberians jumped onto the project. They figured that we'd buy the bulk of the machinery from them, and we did. We even had equipment shipped to Earth, because it was working so well."

That was clearly a bone thrown to his financiers, but it was probably true all the same. Siberia Prime specialized in wrecking the economies of fledgling colonies by offering the highest quality machinery at unmatched prices. Scotty had even seen places where, in the long run, it was cheaper to have Siberia Prime fabricate a bridge or a reactor and then ship the parts over via slipspace tub, rather than building them on site.

"What about shipping the, uh, feces in space? What exactly does that entail?"

"That's the easiest part. We rent out slipspace tugs that normally return to the ag-worlds empty, and our material doesn't require heating or climate control. We just freeze it, compact it, wrap it in plastic, and send it. Our operating costs are far less than the farm co-ops on this planet."

Scotty pressed a button on his recorder to bookmark that section of the recording. He had the picture, the company skeleton, and he'd talk to the employees to flesh it out. His instincts were nagging at him, telling him that he was missing the keystone to the story. The greatest, best researched articles in humanity's leading newspapers could fall on their face because they addressed the "How", "When," and "Who?", but not the "Why."

Hammond had won the most prestigeous prize in the UNSC because of a vision, and Scotty could see the true beauty of Hammond's vision now, how it was the completion of a cycle. Nutrients were flowing back and forth between the Ag-worlds to the populous planets, and back again. It was the old cycle on Earth, expanded to the heavens. But why now? Why Hammond?

* * *

It had been a long day. Scotty could not quite recall how many people he'd interviewed, but that would change when he went over the footage.

He couldn't quite rid himself of the nagging doubts he had about the story. Was he doing the wrong thing by focusing the story on LifeCycle. Jean Hammond, PhD, Nobel Laureate, and so much else, was one of the one in five hundred million who could genuinely steer Humanity in the right direction...

Because he saw what needed to be done, and took action.

A dry wind blew into the terminal where Scotty was waiting for a shuttle, and off in the distance, he saw a massive delta-winged aircraft, a former cargo hauler that had been bought at a rock bottom price. Below it and behind it was a cloud of aerosolized fertilizer a kilometer wide, drifting down to the endless fields of corn that surrounded Three Rapids Station.

Less than a month ago, that fertilizer had been flushed down toilets and dumped out of trash incinerators, collected and congealed in vast sewer tunnels, and then treated for this very purpose. Getting so close to such large quantities of shit and urine went against every instinct in Scotty's mind, and yet there was another smell on the dry wind.

It smelled like life.

Scotty shrugged off his poncho, wrapped his hood and face mask in it, and stuffed it into his bag.

* * *

It was a rare video from Reuters, and indeed any other news outlet, that didn't get cut into a ten second blurb to entice people to press the "More" button. Perhaps that was what made the video go viral on the internet. More likely, it was the air of stern gravity cultivated by the interviewee.

In a dark, off-color meeting room, a genial old man stared into the camera, as if he was trying to make eye contact with the viewer. His face and his clothes were faded from many years under the sun and in the elements, qualities that spoke of oceans of experience.

From behind the camera, Scotty asked the question.

"I understand that you worked at the Red Cross prior to this."

"Yes, I did."

"Why do you believe this work is more important than what you were doing in warzones and epidemic outbreaks?"

In response to Scotty's question, Mr. Hammond leaned forward yet again. His voice lowered, adopting a gravely, somber tone.

"If we were to wait another ten years to start this operation, we'd be ten years behind where we are today, and thirty years behind where we should be. If we waited until signs of depletion showed, we'd be a hundred years behind the time when we should have started. What we do today for hundreds of millions would cost hundreds of trillions to fix then, with a surcharge of a hundred billion lives."

"Each generation bemoans their forefathers, who have saddled them with the debt and the greiviences of previous generations, only to pass the bill on to their children. But now, we face something bigger than a ten trillion credit deficit. Today, we see the spectre of a century of hunger and war upon the horizon, and we can no longer afford to look to our children to shoulder the burden."

_"The cycle must stop."_

* * *

**A/N: This was inspired by something that buggered me ever since I read Contact Harvest, and would have nagged anybody who had ever read the Robert Heinlein novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Having read that, and having worked for several summers in a food processing plant, (Peas, Corn, Cobs, Carrots, and Limas, in order of tonnage that we handle) I felt somewhat qualified to write this. And then, I saw something in the news that made me scream. Back in September, we saw the passing of a great man. His death, sadly, was much like his life: unknown to the world at large, despite his contributions to Humanity.**

**And so, without further ado,**

**In Memoriam  
****Norman Borlaug**

**March 14 1914 -September 12 2009**

**Humanitarian first, Agrinomist second  
Nobel Laureate, Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.  
Recipient of the PadmaVibhushan  
**

**Father of the Green Agricultural Revolution  
Savior of over a billion human lives.  
**


End file.
